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Letter to the Editor: Please Shovel Your Sidewalks, St. Louis!

Even with a sturdy shovel in hand, the foot-high snow banks left by this weekend's winter storm seem impenetrable.

But before you decide to wait for this week's warmer temperatures (if you can call below freezing "warmer") to melt the snow on your sidewalks, consider this note from Daily RFT's new architecture blogger, Chris Naffzinger.

Naffziner, who lives in Tower Grove East, has been urging his neighbors to shovel -- for themselves, for their neighbors, for elderly or disabled people living nearby. He's even offered to shovel neighbors' TGE sidewalks himself for free.

Naffzinger sent us this heartfelt plea about looking out for neighbors in the snowstorm:

Jennifer Silverberg

Chris Naffzinger

I love St. Louis and the friendliness of its residents, but every winter I'm surprised that so many people don't shovel their sidewalks.

I've been told by some they drive everywhere, so it doesn't matter to them. But I would like everyone to think of the people who don't have cars and have to walk. After the last storm, I saw an elderly disabled neighbor walking down the middle of the street; the street was safer, ironically, because the sidewalks were sheets of ice, trampled down by people walking on the snow nobody had bothered to shovel.

You're not going to get sued; it's an old urban legend. But you could make someone's life a little easier later on this week when people and students have to start going back to work and school.

Just shovel your sidewalks or pay $10 to a neighborhood kid to do it for you.

For more from freelance writer Chris Naffziger, check out his blog, St. Louis Patina.